I vividly recall a Saturday morning meeting in Cupertino during the bad days of 1985: Steve Jobs was gone; Mac sales were weak; the kommentariat saw inevitable failure because Apple’s new personal computer wasn’t “standard”, which resulted in a lack of support from “serious developers” of business software. Company marketeers were on their heels, looking for a counter-narrative.

A venerable Valley story doctor was brought to the patient’s bedside and, in short order, offered a simple remedy: Position the Mac as a Graphics Based Business System (GBBS). The Business System part was adman puffery meant to project gravitas, but the reference to graphics made unarguable sense: The Mac’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) was clearly a distinguishing factor at the time.

Everyone in the room loved the idea. Rather than take on the whole market, Apple would define and dominate a niche. As the Valley marketing sage put it (quoting Julius Caesar), better to be the chief of a small village in the Alps than second-in-command in Rome.

Thanks to Jobs’ vision and powers of seduction, a couple of “serious developers”, Adobe and Aldus, helped transform the GBBS air guitar into a reality. Adobe contributed the PostScript software engine for the LaserWriter’s breakthrough typography and graphics. Aldus came up with the PageMaker program that made exemplary use of the Mac + LaserWriter combo. Aldus Chairman Paul Brainerd coined the term Desktop Publishing(DTP), a phrase that replaced the GBBS straw man and remains to this day. The Mac became #1 in the DTP village.